Space, in brief

Japan's space agency, JAXA, plans to launch its MMX spacecraft at 19:41 GMT on Monday 19 October, which is 04:41 on Tuesday in Japan. [3][1]

It will ride the H3, Japan's new main rocket, from Tanegashima Space Center, a launch site on an island in southern Japan. [3][2]

The plan is to land on Phobos, the larger of Mars's two small moons, collect at least 10 grams of its soil and bring it to Earth in 2031. [3][4]

That would be the first sample ever brought back from Mars or its moons. [1] Several Russian attempts to land on Phobos, including one launched in 2011, failed. [2]

Scientists have argued for more than a century about where Phobos came from. [5] It is either a passing asteroid caught by Mars's gravity, or rubble thrown into orbit when something huge hit Mars. [1]

The two ideas predict different chemistry, so the answer should be clear soon after the soil reaches a lab, says Sara Russell of the Natural History Museum, the mission's deputy for sample analysis. [1]

About 0.1% of the soil may be grains of Mars itself, blasted up to Phobos by old impacts on the planet, JAXA officials say. [2][4]

Phobos has about one two-thousandth of Earth's gravity, so the spacecraft has four shock-absorbing legs to cut down bouncing when it lands. [4][2]

First, a small four-wheeled rover called IDEFIX, built by the space agencies of France and Germany, will drop from about 40 metres up and explore for about 100 days. [3][2][6]

One of the two samplers is a NASA device that blows gas at the ground and catches the dust it throws up. [2] It began as a prototype that members of the Planetary Society, a US public group that backs space science, paid for in 2013. [6]

A NASA and European plan to fetch the rocks the Perseverance rover has collected on Mars was effectively cancelled when the US Congress stopped its money. [1] China plans its own Mars sample trip, launching in 2028 and also returning in 2031. [1]

Why it matters. The first test is whether the H3 lifts off on time tonight; the harder one comes at Phobos, where NASA says soil could be collected from December 2028 at the earliest. [3]

SpaceX is due to launch Bandwagon-5, a shared ride on its Falcon 9 rocket, from Cape Canaveral in Florida at 10:30 UTC. [8][9] Its 32 payloads include SpaceX's second Starfall, a flat disc 3.1 metres wide and 0.75 metres tall that can bring up to 1,000 kg home under a parachute. [9] SpaceX has not said what this one carries. [8] Varda's W-7, a much smaller capsule, carries a new cancer drug called PROTAC to see whether it forms better crystals in weightlessness. [8] It can reach up to 25 times the speed of sound coming home. [9]

Why it matters. A capsule that waits in orbit and lands when told turns a trip to space into a delivery service for drugs and experiments. [9] Forecasters gave the weather only a 55% chance of being good enough to launch. [8]

SpaceX aims to fly Starship Flight 15 no earlier than 8 November, and Elon Musk says it will try to catch both the booster and the upper stage. [10] SpaceX has caught boosters at Starbase, its Texas site, but never tried with the upper stage. [7] Engines were taken off that flight's upper stage for an extra test with super-cold liquid, possibly linked to an engine software fault on Flight 14, reports NASASpaceflight, a space news site. [10] Flight 16 is aimed at December and could be the first Starship launch from Florida. [10]

Why it matters. That would make only five Starship launches in 2026, against 25 a year Starbase is already allowed. [10] Catching the upper stage would open the way to flying a used one again, NASASpaceflight says. [10]

A study of blood from ten astronauts on the International Space Station found that spaceflight changed the activity of more genes in the younger crew members. [12] The astronauts were 34 to 61 years old at launch, and their blood was taken between 75 and 210 days into their missions. [12] Longer missions changed more genes too. [12] Younger astronauts also showed more strain in mitochondria, the parts of a cell that make its energy. [12] The NASA-led team published it on 12 October in npj Microgravity, a journal about life in weightlessness. [12]

Why it matters. The authors say nobody yet knows whether the stronger response helps the body or harms it. [12] The last blood samples were taken at 210 days, so the study cannot show what happens on longer trips. [12]

Small plants grown on the space station showed fewer signs of stress when they were bred to build up putrescine, a natural chemical that plants make, a University of Wisconsin-Madison team reports. [13] The plants were thale cress, a small weed scientists use as a standard lab plant. [13] Ordinary seedlings in orbit grew longer leaf stalks, a sign usually seen in plants short of oxygen, and switched on many stress genes. [13] The bred plants switched on fewer stress genes, and their stalks stretched less. [13] The paper came out on 15 October. [13]

Why it matters. Long trips will need plants that grow food and refresh the air for crews far from Earth, and the authors say changing this chemical's pathway could help. [13]

The four astronauts who flew around the Moon on Artemis II this year received the Stephen Hawking Medal for science communication on Saturday 17 October. [11] NASA's Reid Wiseman and Victor Glover and Canada's Jeremy Hansen collected it at the opening of Starmus, a science festival in Tenerife, in Spain's Canary Islands. [11] NASA's Christina Koch, the fourth crew member, was not there. [11] Stephen Hawking and Starmus set up the medal in 2016, and earlier winners include Buzz Aldrin, David Attenborough and Jane Goodall. [11]

Why it matters. The prize is for sharing the flight with people on the ground, through live calls, interviews and photos from the trip. [11] Film director Ridley Scott was also honoured in this, the medal's tenth year. [11]

Pakistan's first astronaut will fly from a Chinese launch site on 25 November, Ahsan Iqbal, Pakistan's planning minister, said on Sunday. [14] The astronaut will be one of two Pakistani pilots, Zeeshan Ali and Khurram Daud, whom China picked in April and has been training in Beijing. [14] China itself has not said which of them will fly, or when. [14] In orbit the chosen pilot will run Pakistan's science experiments rather than fly the spacecraft, an official at Suparco, Pakistan's space agency, told Reuters. [14]

Why it matters. The spacecraft, the launch site, the trainers and the language spoken in orbit are all Chinese, so the date depends on China's own plans. [14] Iqbal also said Pakistan aims to land on the Moon by 2035. [14]